[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 143 (Thursday, September 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H8942]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1615
                                MEDICARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Diaz-Balart). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Gibbons] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, for those who are watching C-SPAN, they 
have been already treated to a part of the debate on Medicare and 
Medicaid. Why do we continue to harp on this subject?
  I want to first of all say that I have been on the Medicare program 
for 10 years. I have paid my payments and paid my dues in that program, 
and my wife has been on the program for about that time, too. But even 
more importantly, I was here in the Congress when we created Medicare.
  For the last 27 years, I have been on the Medicare committee, the 
Committee on Ways and Means. During all that time, I have taken a deep 
interest in the program and have helped nurture it. So I know what I am 
talking about.
  The Republicans, though, have seized upon some reason for giving a 
great tax cut to their wealthy friends, and the only place they can get 
the money is out of the Medicare and Medicaid program.
  Now, the Republicans are going to take, within a matter of 2 weeks, 
from Medicare and Medicaid recipients a total of $489 billion out of 
those two programs. Let me repeat that: $489 billion, almost a trillion 
dollars, half a trillion dollars out of those programs.
  And most of that will end up in the pockets of their wealthy friends.
  The Medicare and Medicaid programs are powerfully complex, in 
benefits as well as in structure. The Medicare program is not broke. 
That is the first thing that we must understand. The Medicare program 
was set up as a pay-as-you-go program when I was in Congress here. And 
it has been that way ever since.
  We always thought if we could keep a year ahead of the bills, then 
the program would be lucky. Now we are 7 years ahead of the bills in 
the program, and the Republicans are wringing their hands, so that they 
can get enough money out of that program, those programs to pay for 
their tax cuts for their wealthy friends.
  The Medicare program covers not only benefits for elderly people, 
medical care benefits, but it covers all of the disabled in the United 
States. It covers all of the medical education in the United States. It 
covers all of the kidney dialysis for the kidney failure patients in 
the United States, regardless of age. It covers all of the help for 
rural hospitals and urban hospitals that must take care of a great many 
very poor people. So it is a very complex and a very extensive program.
  Most of the nursing home care in the United States is paid for out of 
the Medicaid program, a part of that $479 billion of cuts. Those people 
are going to be dumped either back on their families or back on the 
community because they are there, and they will be there; perhaps no 
hope for ever curing them. And that is the size and the tragedy of the 
whole thing we are talking about.
  The Medicare program has been changed over the years in order that we 
could pay the bills from year to year. We will continue to do that 
regardless of the outcome of this Republican proposal to take so much 
money out of the program to give for a tax cut for their wealthy 
friends.
  What we are really complaining about is that no one has seen their 
plan. I have held up for a lot of people a copy of their plan. As we 
all can plainly see, it is just a blank piece of paper.
  On the day we start to debate this plan in the Congress, I will bring 
in the plan and let us see it from this same podium. It will be 500, 
600, 700, maybe 1,000 pages long. And who will understand what is in 
that plan we have been promised for months? We have seen nothing. We 
have been promised a plan as of this afternoon, and we got nothing. We 
have been promised that we would start voting on that next Monday, but 
now they have moved it until Wednesday a week.
  I hope we see the plan before Wednesday a week, because the American 
public needs to understand what the plan is and how it works and what 
it will cost them in further out-of-pocket expenditures or cuts in 
benefits or both.
                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind all Members that 
remarks in debate must be addressed to the Chair and should not be 
directed to a viewing audience.

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